


Mineralogy in Slow Motion

by entanglednow



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Gen, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Non-human
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-28
Updated: 2014-02-28
Packaged: 2018-01-14 01:43:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1248079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All John wants is somewhere to spend the next few months, while he's blind as a bat. Just the next few months. The doctors were optimistic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mineralogy in Slow Motion

**Author's Note:**

> Me and GoldenUsagi continue our adventure to try and write a story every month where Sherlock is something weird and unusual. February's story for me is a mystery, but for another flavour of AU, try out [Anachronisms](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1248034) by GoldenUsagi.

John doesn't know what the man looks like, but Mycroft Holmes _sounds_ officious. That's really the only word that suits him at the moment. It's probably not the only word John could come up with though, given the time. Because, for all that he sounds like your average, overworked, middle-aged man, he doesn't move like one. He doesn't fill space like one. John's only known him ten minutes, and Mycoft's already managed to not come within range of a handshake, to make just enough noise that John can follow him, but not quite enough to get a sense of where he is at any given time, and John gets the impression that for all that he's wearing rather obvious bandages over both eyes Mycroft Holmes has never once taken his eyes off of him.

Interesting man.

Which might explain why John doesn't object all that strenuously - or really at all, not even a token if he's being brutally honest with himself - when he's gradually maneuvered into position outside what he's led to believe is 221B Baker Street, and possibly somewhere to spend the next few months while he's blind as a bat. Just the next few months. The doctors were optimistic.

They promised, just a few months.

Someone moves into his side, definitely not Mycroft Holmes, a driver? A bodyguard? Some random member of the public he's snapped his fingers and _acquired_? Whoever they are, they say 'Doctor Watson,' almost too low to be heard, before setting a hand on his arm and guiding him upstairs. He would object, he wants to object, if not for the suspicion that he'd end up in a cupboard without someone providing helpful directions. Though he's not expecting his new assistant to completely abandon him once they reach the top of the stairs, with simply an instruction to 'go just a few steps forward, sir.' He feels the door shutting behind him, before he hears it click.

There's a slim possibility he's about to be murdered. He'd really hate for this day to end with him being murdered, probably in some horribly undignified way. He'd been prepared for being blind to make him feel helpless - not as prepared for it making him feel stupid.

He crosses the idea of impending murder out a second later, when there's a sigh that sounds both highly irritated and exaggerated for effect. Then there's a noise like someone dragging a heavy rug across the floor. John keeps still, while Sherlock Holmes - Sherlock Holmes? Seriously who are these people, characters in a H.P. Lovecraft novel? John assumes that Sherlock is moving something out of his way, so he doesn't trip over it. Which is something, he supposes, his experience so far as told him that most people just leave furniture in the way, and then radiate guilt quietly when he inevitably walks into it.

"John Watson." He holds his hand out, hoping he's close enough that it doesn't look like it's hanging ridiculously in mid-air. There's a very long pause where it's left alone in mid-air anyway, long enough that John starts to think Sherlock Holmes has no intention of shaking hands. He's not quite sure how to take his hand back without looking awkward - though looking awkward is something he's gradually admitting to himself is something else he may have to get used to. Really the only way to do it is to just drop it, and pretend it doesn't bother him in the slightest. He's about to do exactly that when his hand is clasped, in what he presumes is one of Sherlock's. His hand is cold, and very dry. It slips away almost immediately.

"Sherlock Holmes, but then I suspect my...brother has already offered that information." He has a deep voice, coming from somewhere a distance above John's head. He adjusts his look of harmless sincerity to a slightly higher angle. He should have remembered to assume everyone was taller than him, unless given evidence to the contrary.

"He seemed to think you'd be alright with the arrangement. He said you needed a flatmate, that you'd requested one?" He leaves that as a question, though he's certain that Mycroft never used the phrase 'requested one,' no, the whole thing was a bit closer to a polite kidnapping, where John wasn't really given an opportunity to protest. But he'd really rather not admit how easy he made it for him.

"Did he?" There's an unpleasant tone to the words, suggesting Sherlock knows his brother well enough to read between the lines. John braces himself for what looks to be a rather abrupt rejection. In the circumstances he thinks it's best to try and make it as painless as possible. For everyone involved.

"Ah, of course, if you're not that's fine, it's completely fine. I understand if it was all a mistake and you're not interested. I'm not going to push myself on anyone, don't worry about -"

"Ex-army doctor, invalided home from Iraq - no, Afghanistan." Sherlock's voice moves closer, There's a sense of weight, of _person_ , it's strangely invasive without sight, in a way that John's finding hard to get used to.

"How did you -"

"The blindness," Sherlock interrupts, as if he's used to cutting off other people's thoughts. "Temporary or permanent?"

"Temporary," John answers. He hopes, God, he hopes. "I should know for sure in three months. Who told - "

Sherlock makes a noise in his throat, curious.

"Shoulder damage too, explosion most likely."

"Yes." John stops, he honestly isn't sure whether to be offended or resigned. "So - you were told about me then?"

"Certainly not," Sherlock sounds offended. "Simple deductions based on observation of your tan lines, your hair, how you carry yourself. Your recent injuries are simply the most obvious. I could tell more if I had your phone, or your keys. People don't realise how many things they change by interacting with them, how much of themselves they leave just lying around."

"That's, that's actually incredible," John offers quietly. "I suppose people introducing themselves to you must get pretty old then."

Sherlock makes another non-committal noise in his throat, and there's that carpet dragging noise again, when he speaks again he's suddenly closer.

"I suppose an arrangement could be made, for a few months, until you can acquire other accommodation." The words are strangely halting. John gets the distinct impression that he may very well be the first person Sherlock has ever made any sort of arrangement for. He's not entirely sure why, he doesn't seem to have made a particularly good impression. Or maybe Sherlock is the sort of man that has to feel superior to someone, and he's simply picked the easiest option in John. Because he suspects it's hard not to feel superior to someone who keeps walking into walls.

There's a rustle at floor level, and a quiet, shaky sort of hiss from somewhere else. John hadn't been intending to move, but he suddenly makes a point of purposefully not moving, in case he steps on something.

"Do you keep snakes?" he asks. He knows that people do, obviously. He's just never met anyone that did. He didn't even know they were the sort of pets you could keep out of their tanks, cases?

There's a different noise from Sherlock now, low and thick, as if he's not sure whether to be amused or offended.

"Yes," he says at last. "Problem?"

"No, I mean I've never really had any exotic pets. Don't have any experience with them. I just didn't want to knock anything over and let anything out, or tread on something. The - er - the blindness makes me more clumsy than I used to be." He grits his teeth around the words, mentioning it is getting easier, and it's not permanent.

It's not permanent.

"That won't be a problem," Sherlock assures him. "Though you should note that I do not allow visitors into the flat, under any circumstances. I require personal space, and I don't like to be touched." There's something odd about the way he says it, a stiffness that says he's not used to telling people about himself, maybe not used to other people at all. But then his brother had said he was eccentric, and solitary.

"That's fine, completely fine, I don't know anyone here anyway. I was looking for that - the not knowing anyone. Though obviously I can't see, so you'll have to tell me if I'm..." John gestures into the all-enveloping darkness, in what he hopes is Sherlock's direction. "If I'm getting too close, to you...or anything."

"Noted."

\---

John's room is small enough that he's not going to get lost in it, not even disoriented in the dark, he thinks he should be grateful for that. Everything's hard enough as it is at the moment. Though the room does smell very faintly of chemicals, and not ones he can immediately identify, which is a bit worrying. He's not exactly sure what Sherlock Holmes does, but he supposes he'll find that out eventually.

Someone arranges for his stuff to be moved, he doesn't have a lot of it, so it takes one man, one trip. He's just a deep voice, quite far above John's head, when he carries the box in. He sounds almost apologetic about John's lack of stuff, when he asks him if that's everything, as if he'd been paid for a day's work, and doesn't feel right taking it off a blind man. A blind _soldier_ , since John suspects he's the same one who packed it all. He wonders, absently, if he looked hard enough to find the gun. He probably would have said something if he had. Not that it matters, since he won't be shooting it any time soon.

\---

It turns out Sherlock is apparently a Consulting Detective. John hadn't been entirely sure what that was, though he was immediately assured that it wasn't the same as a Private Investigator, because Sherlock had scathingly objected to the term from across the room, twice. The police give Sherlock their case files, case notes, interview tapes and videos (honestly, was that even legal?) And then Sherlock yells at them over the phone, or sometimes by email, telling them who committed the crime, where they lived, what they washed their hair with. Sherlock can tell pretty much everything about a person, before they've even gotten their alibi straight. Probably more than they want him to know - definitely more than they want him to know, judging by the voicemails people leave him. But still, solving their crimes for them, by phone? Sherlock makes it all feel more like a magic trick, John keeps wanting to look under the table to see how he works. Not that he can look at anything at the moment, hypothetical looking, or figurative looking, he's never quite sure which one's right. Either way he keeps trying to see how it's done...his brain still half tries even after Sherlock tells him.

Speaking of looking - John doesn't even know what Sherlock himself looks like. The most he has to go on is probably tall, and definitely posh. He guesses about the hair, probably brown, but since that's the most common colour that doesn't feel like a clever deduction. So tall, posh and vaguely brunet?

Brown eyes...maybe?

He's not exactly setting a gold standard for the Consulting Detective assistant position. But surprisingly Sherlock gives it to him anyway.

Inspector Lestrade, of the Metropolitan Police, contacts Sherlock entirely via technology, phone, text and email, short, argumentative, strangely veiled, as if Lestrade hates that Sherlock can't come out, but understands why. Inspector Lestrade's Sergeant seems to think Sherlock's contagious in some way. Mrs Hudson who lives downstairs (and keeps bringing John biscuits, tidying things, and cooking for them both) sighs a lot, but never offers anything that John doesn't already know. John hasn't actually asked Sherlock, but he's hovering around some sort of social anxiety, or agoraphobia, as a possible explanation. Though he doesn't seem to have much trouble with John, he seems to forget he's there half the time. Maybe it's just the outside world Sherlock hates?

But Sherlock is fascinating, absolutely fascinating. He's intelligent in the way John hadn't even known people could be, he remembers everything, connects everything, seems to hold it in perfect clarity for whenever he might need to rifle through it for clues. In less time than it takes John to remember where he'd left his keys (a far more frustrating adventure during his temporary blindness.)

John assumes it will be hard for them to live with each other. But after a long, strange, hectic afternoon during which he conducts a panicking police constable through a series of injections via phone, and Sherlock tracks down a serial killer by coordinating loudly and rudely with two bus drivers, Sherlock treats him like he's always been there.

John finds that he doesn't mind at all.

For long weeks John finds himself surrounded by papers he can't read, listening to people claim their innocence via sound, or video files, while Sherlock occasionally mutters 'liar' in the background. He describes things to John, some of which he has no understanding of the importance of - a lot of them, to be fair. The low rattling hiss of the snakes, that live behind the sofa, just audible over John's constant, and no doubt repetitive, exclamations of astonishment. Sherlock starts reading him emails, from what John assumes is his position sprawled across the sofa (which is undoubtedly Sherlock's territory, the great mass of over-soft cushions and slippery blankets would be murder on his back anyway,) drawing John deeper into the criminal mind than he ever expected to get. Sherlock talks for hours, as if he's never had the opportunity before, which is ridiculous. John loses track of which questions are the clever ones to ask, and which are the stupid ones, but Sherlock answers most of them anyway, and only occasionally calls him an idiot.

He gets to the stage where he almost doesn't mind.

\---

John also learns how to make tea blind, how to shave blind without cutting his face to pieces, how to navigate the flat, how to recognise the smell of some sort of unpleasant experiment going on. In Sherlock's defense he does agree to John's demand for a health and safety zone extending two feet around the kettle. Even if his definition of two feet doesn't always extend in the same direction every time - John suspects he moves the kettle, sometimes on purpose. Sherlock has an...interesting sense of humour.

John also worries, distantly and frustratingly. Sherlock notices, can't help but notice. He tells John he's being stupid, that he's had the best medical treatment, that the damage was superficial. It's just a matter of time. From anyone else it would sound like platitudes. Sherlock makes them sound like both a threat and a promise. It's strange how he's the only one John actually believes.

Sherlock makes you believe things.

He's almost used to Sherlock's weird quirks, this obsessive, secretive, impossible man, with his almost aggressive refusal to let anyone into his personal space, and his tendency to take up far too much space and pin things above the fireplace with kitchen knives. John likes him, for all his abrasive edges and long, manic stretches of frustration and arrogance. John likes him more than he's liked anyone for a very long time.

He thinks he has a handle on who Sherlock Holmes is.

\---

"Have you ever thought about going out and looking at a crime scene," John starts tentatively, over a piece of toast with too much marmalade on. Sherlock has a vague idea of what foods should go together, but not always the right quantities. John's not up to getting too adventurous with open flames yet, and he thinks Sherlock views suddenly having someone else who eats in the house as an opportunity to experiment. John hasn't decided if he should be grateful for that yet. "I mean you see _everything_ , I'd imagine if you were there in person you'd -"

"Not possible," Sherlock interrupts from across the table, neither gently nor quietly.

John's toast hovers in mid-air, because this is the only thing that Sherlock won't fight, that he won't protest, and John doesn't understand it. Not when Sherlock will happily trample everyone else's reservations, and anxieties, and human foibles, underfoot, without a second thought. He could let it go - he could just accept that it's one of those things Sherlock has built his world view around. But he can't help wondering what happens if Sherlock gets hurt, really hurt, something one of Mycroft's expensive doctors can't fix. Or if something happened to Mycroft. Oh, John has no doubt that Sherlock wouldn't starve to death, he's horribly resourceful. But he wouldn't...have anyone.

"Have you ever thought about it though?" he presses.

He can hear Sherlock looking at him, or possibly glaring at him, some sort of unhappy expression which disapproves of John continuing his line of questioning. John tries to look earnest while he eats his toast. Earnest but not pressing, not invasive. Which is harder than it seems when you can't use your eyes. Toast is not known for its communicative qualities.

"Yes," Sherlock admits, quiet and drawn-out. "I've thought about it, though not the way you think. It wouldn't be what you think. It would be...problematic." Sherlock stops talking, throat cutting off the words in a way that sounds frustrated.

"You know I'd come with you, if you wanted, whenever you wanted." It's an easy thing to offer. The very least he could do.

"More problematic," Sherlock says immediately, and John wants to be offended for a moment, but there's such a strange sort of hurt frustration underneath the anger in the words.

"I worry about you too, you know," John says. "And not just because because you piss off half the criminals in London."

Sherlock's answering noise is quiet, but unhelpful.

Not for the first time, John wishes he could see him.

\---

One of the good thing about quiz shows, John has found, is for most of them you don't need to be able to see. But the best thing, the _best_ thing about quiz shows is how bad Sherlock is at them. Everything from pop music, to sport, to movies and television, it's an unexpected chasm where Sherlock is almost as blind as he is. John feels no guilt at all about how hilarious he finds that.

"I don't need to know any of this," Sherlock complains, and not for the first time, from where John assumes he's, as always, spread in an assortment of directions on the sofa. His voice holds the confused defense of someone who's being forced to attend a dinner party when he doesn't speak the language. "It's all irrelevant data."

"You're going to be in serious trouble if anyone ever murders a quiz show host then, aren't you," John tells him. "I can imagine him now," he says with a smile. "He'll be lying among all his quiz cards, covered in blood and surrounded by cleverly disguised general knowledge clues."

"If that happens I shall make you solve it. It'll serve you right."

John likes to imagine Sherlock has thrown an arm over his head, legs curled up under him, the classic tortured genius pose.

"Shush, I'm trying to remember some of the actors from _A Night To Remember_. David McCallum was in it, wasn't he? Why am I asking you, you probably spent your childhood taking apart the televisions and making something else out of them, electric chairs, or lie detectors, or smoke machines."

"What would I do with a smoke machine?"

John nods to himself. "Yes, I think you've just rather disturbingly made my point for me there - oh, was that a snake question, you should be good at this. You like herpetology."

There's a thump from the sofa. John thinks it's one of those dramatic noises people make for effect. Sherlock only ever seems to use the sofa cushions for drama.

"I don't like herpetology."

"Well, you know stuff about snakes, I know you, you're never satisfied. You'll know more than most people. You have to know everything about a subject, if it's the slightest bit important."

Sherlock mumbles something about importance being a matter of opinion.

"What was that?"

"Not as much as you'd think," Sherlock grumbles, which wasn't what he'd said at all.

"You keep snakes, how can you not know anything about them?"

Sherlock's frustrated noise is aimed in his direction, and he seems about to say something, when someone rings the doorbell downstairs.

"Food," Sherlock declares, and a second later something hits John's lap.

"Will you stop throwing your wallet at me, you know I can't tell which ones are the twenties and which are the tens." He's getting up anyway, making his way downstairs, where he can hear Mrs Hudson talking to what sounds like a young man, and what smells like Chinese food.

"Hello," he says, to whoever may be facing in his general direction. "Order for 221B?"

Mrs Hudson knows which are the twenties and which are the tens, without John spending five minutes fumbling around. Either that or she's quietly ransacking Sherlock's wallet for overdue rent. Either way John ends up with food and change as he makes his way back upstairs.

"You can serve," he announces, when he gently bumps into table. He sets the bag down, making sure it isn't going to immediately fall down and throw food everywhere. "It'll be quicker."

There's the rustling sound of the sofa protesting, and then Sherlock's sighing a few feet from him. He moves very quickly when he wants to, much faster than John.

"What do you want on your plate?"

"Bit of everything sounds good," John decides.

"You missed a question about rugby," Sherlock says, with what John considers is a little too much satisfaction. There's the sound of a plastic lid peeling away from a box, and when the smell hits him John's considerably hungrier than he had been before.

"You're using a fork, I can hear it clanking."

"Yes, I'm using a fork. I don't own chopsticks, why would I own chopsticks?"

"It's sort of traditional."

"I didn't exactly entertain very much before you. Not very much being 'not at all,' in fact. Cutlery was quite far down my list of things to attend to."

"That's why none of them match then. " John pokes at several with his thumb. "And I'm pretty sure most of them are dessert forks. Sherlock, how do you have so many dessert forks?"

"I haven't the faintest idea. They came with the flat."

"And you didn't deduce anything about someone with too many dessert forks? No, actually, you know what, don't tell me. I remember the last time I asked that you punished me for it by talking about the London sewer system. I just know I'll come to regret it all later, so just pretend I never asked. You were going to tell me about Mr Dawkins though."

"Mr Dawkins," Sherlock agrees, then doesn't say anything else. Perhaps he thinks the pause makes him sound mysterious.

"Yes, Mr Dawkins, you said he smothered his neighbour in her sleep, but you also said he never left the house."

"Never by the door, he never left _by the door_. He crawled through a space connecting the two attics, killed her and then returned to his own home."

John assumes that Sherlock's looking smug. He has the sort of voice that sounds like it enjoys the opportunity to be smug.

"But why did he do that?" John pushes. "You were going to tell me why."

"I discovered that Mr Dawkins had a deep fear and hatred of cats, likely due to a childhood incident with an aunt, or perhaps female cousin. Killing Mrs Bellman's cat would do nothing of course, since she'd just have acquired another one. The only option was to kill Mrs Bellman herself."

John points his fork in what he judges to be Sherlock's direction. Hoping he's not close enough to stab him.

"Wait, Mr Dawkins killed his neighbour because of the cat?"

"Yes."

John continues to give the impression that he'd be staring at him if he currently could. "That's ridiculous."

"I simply identify the murderers, John. I don't grade them on their intelligence or style, or lack thereof."

John pauses with his fork halfway to his mouth.

"Maybe you should."

"Most of them would fail," Sherlock shoots back immediately, and John has to smile.

"Your standards are too high. You can't expect spontaneous murderers to all be imaginative, like the one who walled himself up afterwards. I'm still mad that I didn't twig that before you. I'm pretty sure he stole it from an episode of Jonathan Creek, and it was - damn."

"What?"

"I just lost a mini spring roll. Did it end up on the floor?"

"No, it's still on the plate, to the left - other left."

Sherlock's half way between frustration and amusement. John knows exactly what that feels like. He eventually stabs something which crunches slightly and makes a noise of discovery.

"I expect you're going to miss this," John says.

Sherlock's belated noise of protest sounds forced to John's ears.

\---

At his last hospital appointment before the final removal of the bandages - during which he spends more time sitting in an uncomfortable plastic chair wondering whether everyone had somehow forgotten him, than being examined - the doctor is optimistic, but cautious. John doesn't even get to hear the results of the most recent tests. He's done the cautiously optimistic thing himself, but he's never realised how bloody frustrating it is from the other side. He has smaller bandages over his eyes, and they're starting to itch like hell. He really doesn't care to wait an extra week, but he knows if he takes them off himself then they'll know. He doesn't want to give them the satisfaction - he also doesn't want Sherlock to know he cheated.

Though he suspects Sherlock himself would cheat at the first opportunity, that somehow makes it worse.

The one good thing about all this, is that John's stopped losing his keys. It's becoming a habit to put them down somewhere he knows to pick them up from the next time. It doesn't mean he doesn't still spend a few minutes fishing in his pocket for them though. That's the reason he's not paying more attention to the man behind him - until he's right inside his personal space, unfamiliar and suddenly _right there_ and John goes very still. He goes very still in preparation to do something which will require him to not be still at all. It only takes him another second to realise that the cold, solid object shoved into the bottom of his ribcage is a gun, and that it's in the perfect position to put a hole right through him, not caring in the slightest how many of his internal organs are in the way.

"Not a word, Dr Watson." A bland, toothy, and completely unfamiliar voice tells him.

This is not a man who has pleasant things planned for him, or more likely planned for Sherlock. It's amazing how many criminals he's managed to catch over the years. But it's not amazing at all to think that some of them didn't stay caught, and rather fancied the idea of finding the reclusive detective and dealing out a little revenge.

John thinks it will be the permanent sort.

An overly warm, ungentle hand prises the keys he's just used to unlock the door away from him, and shoves the door open, pushes him through it. John knows the flat well enough not to stumble, but doesn't trust himself enough to stumble on purpose. Which means nothing a half a minute later when he feels the gun smash into the back of his head, angle not good enough to knock him out, but he's on the floor, and his ears are ringing with the jagged-edged roar of pain. It's a good job he can't see anyway, it's just one less thing to worry about.

"Sherlock, he's got a gun." That's not as loud or as coherent as John would have liked. He can't see a thing, but he hears glass breaking, hears the man who'd shoved him into his own flat move past him. Though the stranger kicks him in the back for good measure, and if John had been facing the other way, and relatively sure of where his knee was, he would have crippled the bastard. He still makes a grab for his ankle, catches the edge of a shoe, not enough to pull him down. Not good enough, damn his eyes.

"Yes, Sherlock, I have a gun. I also have your friend, so if you'd be good enough to get out here, we can have a conversation."

There's a crack from somewhere deep in the flat, the rush of low sound, the drag of heavy cloth on carpet. John tries to push himself up on his hands, and gets shoved back down again.

"You wanted to see me, I assume." Sherlock says, from somewhere far to his left.

John hears the stranger's shoes turn on the carpet,

"OH GOD -"

The strangled yell cuts out, and there's a noise like pottery cracking, a dull, hard, heavy sound. John's trying to get his feet under him, hand pressed to the back of his head. He's not bleeding, which is unbelievable as he feels like his brains have to be leaking from somewhere. He doesn't dare shake his head, doesn't want to jostle it for a second. Needs it to work.

"Sherlock?!" he calls, heart pounding. He can't hear anything, can't tell what's happening for the life of him. "Where are you? Are you alright?"

"I'm here," Sherlock says, from a few feet to his left, and then right beside him, fingers curled suddenly around John's arm. "He's gone."

"What? Where?" That makes no sense at all, even to his damaged, porridge-consistency brain. He lays his fingers over Sherlock's, lets him pull him gently upright. The man's stronger that he looks, or maybe John is the one who's insubstantial.

"Just gone." There's a long, strange pause before Sherlock speaks again. "You're ridiculous," he says, sounding tight-edged and astonished at the same time. His fingers uncurl from John's arm - John catches his hand, before it can slip free completely, catches his cold, dry fingers and squeezes. Sherlock lets him, seems to be surprised at the gesture, before reluctantly letting him go.

"You're alright?" John insists, reassures himself, frustrated at not being able to see for himself.

"Of course I'm alright." Sherlock makes it sound like there would never be any circumstance where he was anything else. That John is fussing for the sake of it. John tries to reach for him again, instinctively, and there's a quick shudder of noise when Sherlock backs away from the gesture.

John clenches his hand into a fist and lets it drop.

"Sorry, I'm sorry, I wasn't thinking." He backs up, judders painfully into something solid and hard as a rock - "What the hell?"

Sherlock catches his free hand, physically moves into his space, closer than John is used to him getting. He's close enough that John can feel the brush of his elbow, and the jar of his shoulder, confusingly low for a second, before Sherlock's veering away and tugging more carefully. John follows because he doesn't know what else to do. He's made a habit of following Sherlock without noticing.

"You're going to fall."

"Sherlock, I'm not going to fall." He's been on the floor enough for one day. "What the hell happened?"

Sherlock sighs but doesn't answer, and something swings into the back of John's foot, long, and solid, and strangely heavy. Sherlock apologises, as if he'd kicked him, and John is too confused to protest when Sherlock maneuvers him into an armchair, long fingers fussing at the back of his head. He still says nothing, doesn't explain at all.

\---

John spends a while trying to sleep off his headache, or minor concussion... _details_ as Sherlock would say. There are too many thoughts inside his head, muddy and confused. After a while he stops bothering, listens to the vague noises of the flat that have started to sound a lot like home to him. After a while there's a knock at the door, soft, just on the edge of hearing. He doesn't think he was supposed to hear it at all.

"Sherlock?"

"Mrs Hudson." There's a quiet air of long-suffering frustration, with a heavy dose of reluctant indulgence to the words. It's fond enough to surprise John.

"Oh, don't worry dear I'm wearing a blindfold it's just, at my time of life you don't want to be tripping over rugs. Not at my age." There's a thump, and a quietly muffled swearword. "A hint would be helpful."

"By the fireplace," Sherlock grumbles. There's a shuffling noise, and then a slow, thumping rattle which makes John think something dangerous has gotten loose from one of its tanks again. Though Sherlock assures him that's impossible.

"Don't you get testy with me," Mrs Hudson complains. "You try navigating with your eyes shut and see how many things you knock over." There's the slap of a hand on what sounds like bare flesh. "Oh, there you are. Are you getting enough to eat, you feel skinny."

"John's feeding me." Sherlock's voice sounds both confused and annoyed, almost too low for John to hear. Mrs Hudson laughs like he'd said something entirely different.

"Nice boy, such a shame about the - y'know - but it's good for you, to have a friend."

"He has the bandages taken off next week," Sherlock says, tight and final, almost too low to be heard. "After which his vision should return to normal."

Mrs Hudson sucks in a breath.

"Oh," she says, and there's so much meaning there that John thinks if he only understood it, everything would make sense. "Oh, _Sherlock_."

John lays in the dark for a long time after she's gone.

He has a very sensible brain, it tends to believe what it sees, it tends to believe in real things, believable things. Trying to cram an unbelievable thought into it and make it stick - that takes some time.

\---

John can feel the sun when he gets up, but the air's still cold. It's past dawn then, but still early. He's not sure if that's better or worse. The things he'd been lying in bed thinking about last night - they seem ridiculous in the light of day. But there are really no other explanations. If everything fits neatly, no matter which way you turn it, why would you keep looking for another explanation? Christ, no wonder Sherlock doesn't go out, how would that even work? How the hell did he even get here? Sherlock often says, discard everything impossible, whatever's left, however unlikely, must be the truth. John had thought that was immensely clever at the time. But what if the truth was impossible? What if 'impossible' is the only thing that makes sense?

He makes his way carefully to the sitting room, he can hear Sherlock at his laptop, can hear the shift and rustle of paper at floor level, like the settling of a snake - or of a very long tail. It occurs to him that he could settle this by drifting over to the far wall, reassuring himself that there are no snake tanks in the entire flat. That there are no living things but the two of them. He thinks...he thinks he's fine with that. Which makes him want to laugh as he rifles among the teabags, and feels his way into the fridge.

He's not sure how to start? How do you even start to tell the man you live with that you're fine with him being a mythical creature? How is that a conversation that's going to happen in his life?

"Did your brother get rid of the man you turned to stone yesterday?" John makes it conversational, doesn't react to the sudden, quiet stillness while he pours boiling water into his mug. "You know I don't like him sneaking his men into the flat in the middle of the night. What with the whole 'sneaking into the flat in the middle of the night.' It's considered rude, generally."

Sherlock hasn't spoken, hasn't so much as moved as far as John can tell. He knows that he has his attention though. He's not sure what expression Sherlock's wearing, but he tells himself Sherlock had to know - that some part of him had to know that he couldn't hope to hide this from John forever. He carries his tea over to the table in short, halting steps, feels for the wood, sits down.

How does he hide this from the world. How on earth?

The air feels heavy across the table, and though he never heard him move, John knows that Sherlock's now no more than a foot or so away.

"You assumed I wouldn't be able to tell. I may be slow compared to you, but I'm not a complete idiot, and once I started thinking outside the box...way outside the box, granted, it seemed to fit. What I really want to know - well, no, actually that's a lie, there are a million things I'd like to know, but I'm only going to ask one of them. When I have these taken off." John gestures at the bandages covering his eyes. "I won't be able to look at you will I?" There's a silence, but John doesn't wait for it to become words. "I won't _ever_ be able to look at you?"

"No." It's the first word Sherlock has spoken since John started talking. It sounds strangely vulnerable. He's closer than John thought, not just over the other side of the table but leaning on it. Close enough to reach out and touch. John's hands curl around his mug, tighten on the heat.

The next words out of his mouth weren't what he intended to say at all.

"How do you bear it?" he asks quietly.

There's the near-silent sound of fingers pressing into wood. A long, slow intake of breath.

"An odd question, if you think about it, since I've never known anything else," Sherlock's voice is surprisingly careful, in a way John's not used to. "How do you cope with the terrible burden of not being able to fly?"

"It's not really the same, it's human nature to -" John stops, realises his mistake immediately, though there's no way to pretend he never said it.

"Hmm," Sherlock agrees.

John sets his mug down.

"I think I'm going to touch you," he says quietly. It's supposed to be a warning rather than a threat, but it's not sure how it sounds. "If that's alright with you."

There's a silence that drags on.

"You probably shouldn't," Sherlock says eventually. But he doesn't move away. He stays exactly where he is. Which is permission enough.

"If I don't I'm never going to believe it, not really." John slides his hands across the table first, spreads his fingers until he meets Sherlock's which don't pull back but open, ever so slightly.

"I always wondered why you were always so cold, can you - ah, can you regulate your own body temperature?" It's probably rude to ask, but it's not as if Sherlock hasn't asked him any number of invasive, intimate questions during their brief, strange partnership. And he hasn't always balked at answering them either. It's only fair, he thinks.

"Yes, but not to the extent that you can."

John lifts his hands off the table, raises them, they hang in the air, uncertain, but not unwilling.

"Do you really have...like the myths?"

"Yes," Sherlock says simply, knowing what he's trying to say, even when he can't say it. John can feel his breath on his fingers. He's closer than he'd thought.

"Do they bite?"

"They won't bite _you_." Sherlock seems amused by the fact that that isn't technically an answer to the question. There's that strange sense of humour, always inappropriate, occasionally terrifying.

John laughs, soft and not entirely intentional, then lifts his hands higher. He finds Sherlock's chin, higher than he expects, and Sherlock flinches a little at that first point of contact.

"You don't get touched much do you - God, sorry, that's a stupid question." Such a stupid question, he feels like an idiot for saying something so stupid. "Forget I said anything."

"It's fine," Sherlock says quietly. "No, I don't."

"I didn't think you were that tall?" John says, surprised. The question of Sherlock's height has always been strangely nebulous. He's been assuming six foot, maybe six two.

"Tall is something of a relative term for me," Sherlock admits. "Perhaps _long_ would be better. Heights are...optional for me."

John laughs, small and a bit breathless, just because he can.

"That should have occurred to me. Sort of like the difference between me standing legs apart and me standing on tip toe?" John hazards.

"Nothing like that, and also I suppose something like that," Sherlock says, completely unhelpfully. Because he can't stand imprecision, but he's learning how to make allowances for John.

"You're unbearable, always," John says, and then suddenly has a thought that had escaped him before.

"Mycroft isn't -"

"Mycroft is my half brother." Sherlock pauses. "And therefore completely human. My mother took a long holiday on a Greek island, and came back...carrying me."

"That's -"

Sherlock inhales. "Hideous, impossible, perverted?"

John shakes his head.

"No, I was going to go with astonishingly brave of her, to be honest." The noise that John gets from the other side of the table may very well have been a snort. "I'm sorry, that didn't sound offensive in my head, but now it's out, I'm not entirely sure that it wasn't."

John's fingers are moving again, and it feels weirdly intimate to have his fingers trailing across another man's mouth. But he's too curious to apologise, or make excuses, or stop touching. It's a very human mouth, almost-warm, fuller than he's expecting. Sort of...pouty, and he will take that to his grave. To his grave.

"Do you have a forked tongue?"

That was definitely a snort. There's a laugh on the edge somewhere though. John gets the impression Sherlock didn't laugh much before he met him.

"No, are you disappointed?"

"I'm not sure yet, to be perfectly honest," John admits. "I'm still half-convinced I've made up the whole thing, and you're actually completely normal, and this is all a tremendous joke you're playing on me."

"Hmm." That's not a noise of agreement but of warning. "Go higher."

John does as he's told, Sherlock has a strong nose, long, high. His eyes shut automatically when John gets near them, and he pauses there, can't help wondering what colour they are. Though the only way he'd ever know that would be to ask Sherlock himself. He's just about to comment on it when something flicks his fingers, faint and curious. He almost pulls away, almost makes a sound which might be surprise. But he bites it down, puts a foot on it, and lets his hand slide upwards.

There are snakes, small and curious, and they twist in cold loops around and between his fingers, and it's the most disconcerting thing he's ever experienced in his life. He's been caught in an explosion and yet this is the moment when the world turns upside down and becomes a little stranger and a little more impossible.

"Hello," John says quietly, and then lets out a laugh, half-relief and half desperate need to let the air out of himself. "Sherlock Holmes, I do believe you've turned my world completely upside down."

"I shall take that as a compliment."

"It was intended as one, it was, really." The snakes are reluctant to let him go, which is the oddest sensation he's ever experienced. He pulls his hand back gently, and they un-twine, let him lean back.

He picks up his neglected tea. His hands are a touch shaky if he's being honest.

"So that's why you insist on having the couch to yourself, you must be what...eight foot long?"

"Ten actually, but I'm...flexible. It's easy enough to give the impression that I'm occupying the same space as someone with legs."

"You're not the first person I've met with no legs. You are however the first person who never had legs to begin with." John's a bit stuck on that point. The human blueprint tends to come with legs. "What's that like then?"

Judging by the silence Sherlock's looking at him like he's an idiot.

"I don't know, what's it like to move your legs back and forth in a constant bid to not fall over?"

John nods, smiles into his mug.

"Mostly fine. The not falling over gets easier as you get older - God, I bet you hate stairs."

"Easier when you have arms. Though I did have considerable trouble with one particular staircase at home with slippery banisters, luckily I generally move closer to the ground than you."

John laughs, and Sherlock makes a noise which seems to be amused as well. They end up with their hands loosely clasped in the middle of the table, which John is surprised to realise is absolutely fine.

"I don't want to leave," he says, because it has to come up eventually. "You don't want me to leave."

"It's not a matter of me wanting." Sherlock's voice is flat in such a careful way that John knows he's doing it on purpose. "When you can see I am a constant threat to you. I can't help it, I've tried, my mother has a variety of animal statues in her garden to prove it. Everything living turns to stone."

"It's a shame I'm not undead then."

"Yes that would solve _everything_."

"A sarcastic gorgon, who knew! Seriously though, you work better with me. I - I work better than I have for a long time, with you. I don't - I don't think I want to go back to the place I was before we were friends."

"No," Sherlock agrees, and John thinks it costs him something. "But it's impossible -"

"Who says?"

"History for one."

"I promise I'm not planning to cut your head off - though the mirror thing -"

"Is a fanciful lie, invented by history," Sherlock says warningly. "It doesn't work."

"I wasn't going to try it, I was just thinking out loud. I could just buy a blindfold, wear it in the flat."

"And the day you forget?"

"As if you're going to let me forget anything." John squeezes Sherlock's fingers, and the gesture is still new enough that Sherlock seems to lose his train of thought. It's cruel, John supposes, manipulative almost, but he really doesn't want to leave. "As if you'd let anyone forget anything."

"I make mistakes." The admission is surprising but John can feel the tension under it. Sherlock needing him to stay, but attached enough to want him to go. "I make mistakes constantly."

"Well then, you need me to stay with you, don't you?" John says, and it all seems so simple.

"John Watson -" Sherlock stops, as if re-thinking what he'd been about to say. "I get attached to things," he says at last. "Sometimes, when I want to keep them, I don't know whether that's a Holmes thing or an...other thing."

"That's - that's fine," John says, and he's surprised to find that it is. "It's all fine. I don't do very well with safe and normal," he admits. "I was seeing a therapist, briefly, she wanted me to find something safe and normal. Be a normal person."

"Things which I excel at, as you've discovered."

"Maybe you should have kept the statue?"

"Surround myself with them, perhaps? Maybe decorate the flat with burning torches, that's just asking for some sort of toga-wearing hero to come chop my head off, surely?"

"Well if they do I'm a pretty good shot, as long as I'm pointed in the right direction."

Sherlock's staring at him, he can tell.

"We'll be perfect together, naturally," he drawls out, as if John might have lost his mind, as if he has no idea how this whole thing happened.

"Naturally," John agrees, and there's no sarcasm in it at all.


End file.
